It is interesting to consider that beverages like coffee, chocolate and even sherbet, seemingly innocuous to us (because they are nonalcoholic) began life in England as dangerous, expensive and exciting symbols of dissidence . . .
—Antonia Fraser, King Charles II
Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out . . . Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince’s part to pardon . . .
Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh. This is the more generous. For the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt, as in making the party repent.
—Francis Bacon, “On Revenge,” 1625